Douglas Fowler - Facing Edward Christiansen, 1972

Facing Edward Christiansen, 1972

In 1971, Fowler won Democratic renomination over several candidates, including Jerome Sauer, who raised questions about the validity of voting machines in providing an accurate voter cournt. Fowler then faced only his second Republican opponent, reformer Edward W. Christiansen, Jr., a retired Air Force colonel and a former mathematics instructor at Tulane University in New Orleans. Thereafter a delegate to the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, Christiansen proposed that modern electronic voting devices be adopted to replace what he called "bulky, heavy, cumbersome, cantankerous" voting machines in use since the administration of Governor Robert F. Kennon (1952-1956). Voting machines, often called "Shoup machines" for their inventor, Ransom Shoup, were used in some of the more populous parishes, including East Baton Rouge, Caddo (Shreveport) and Calcasieu (Lake Charles) prior to the Kennon administration, but it was Kennon who obtained electronic machines in all precincts.

Christiansen ran on the Republican slate headed by gubernatorial candidate David C. Treen, then of Jefferson Parish. While Treen obtained 42.8 percent of the vote against Democrat Edwin Washington Edwards, Christiansen polled only 265,525 votes (25.5 percent). The entrenched Fowler received 721,987 votes (71.7 percent), and the American Party nominee Louis D. Arnaud drew 28,413 votes (2.8 percent).

In 1975, in the first-ever nonpartisan blanket primary, or jungle primary in Louisiana, Fowler easily defeated two fellow Democrats who sought the elections commissioner's position, Jerome A. Sauer, who charged that Louisiana voting machines can easily be rigged, and Delores Burrell Vanison.